Coyote Yipps

I posted “The Move” when it was breaking news — you got it right after it happened, fresh off the press. Little did I know that it wasn’t over yet. In fact, I collected my cameras from the construction site three days later — the site had been locked up for the Memorial Weekend — the cameras, in my mind, would no longer be needed — they were there for counting pups.

I perused the memory cards from those cameras and, surprise! Four more pups appeared on the cameras! As seen in the videos from a field camera and my previous posting about this, two had been moved, but there were more. Would the other four be moved, or had she decided to divide up the litter for safety reasons? The situation remained like this for close to a week.

Over the next 2 days, I spent a couple of hours, at the same time of day Mom had moved the first two pups, waiting to see it happen again. It did not happen while I was there.

However, I did spot her on guard in the old area on top of a high dirt mound, keeping her eye on the construction activity AND regularly peeking over to where I imagined any pups would be (they were not in my view).

Then, a full five days after moving those first two pups, this time before dawn, a camera caught another youngster being carried away, this time in a much sloppier fashion: the pup had been grabbed by the nape of the neck and its feet dragged on the ground as his mother carried him. See first part of video below which is in black and white using IR lighting.

This same day, another field camera captured an additional four pups at the construction site gate. In the video, it looked like Mom was going to entice them to *walk* with her to the new location. Two followed her out, but eventually they all returned. If you’ll notice, the pups are not small at this age, and I wondered if the burden of carrying such big unwieldy pups was proving to be too taxing.

The next day I watched Mom again at the construction site where the pups had been born. This time she was not guarding the area. Rather, she was purposefully trotting around: she had direction to her pace — she knew exactly what she was doing and where she was going — but of course I did not know what she was up to until after the fact. It turned out she was making sure everything was in place for her next move. Shortly thereafter, I was able to glimpse, just out of the corner of my eye, Mom carrying yet another youngster out of the area — I was unable to catch up with her to record it with my camera. She headed for exactly where I had seen her head earlier. After she disappeared, I went to that spot and found that she had widened a hole under the fence and this is the route she took with the pup in her mouth. When I had seen her earlier, she had been checking to make sure that hole was still there and usable so that she could pass through it quickly.

There is purpose and direction to everything coyotes do! Mom had had a pre-thought-out plan — detailed foresight — and she then carried it out. As I would later find out through the video below, her plan was to carry out the remaining four pups, all the while avoiding as much detection as possible by people and dogs: she had already analyzed most dogs’ routes and planned to go when those dogs who had a history of antagonism or chasing would not be around.

Interestingly, and this, I’m sure was part of her plan, a couple of bystanders saw her head in the opposite direction from where she had taken the other pups. When out of view, she then circled around and back, all the while carrying a pup: she was making sure no one was following her.

The video below shows her carrying each of those remaining four pups within the space of three hours in the middle of the day to the new location which was about 1/4th mile away.

By the way, based on what I saw, I don’t think coyotes know how to count, at least beyond seven. After all the pups were removed, she went back to see if there were any more, which she would not have done had she known how to count!

I’m not sure the pups are any safer than before in their new location: now there are dogs to contend with, and the fence is right on the street where cars could easily pick them off: these conditions did not exist in the old location. But the family will have to deal with these and other issues as they come up.

I’ve seen both Mom and Dad take turns guarding against the intrusion of dogs at their new location — but they guarded in the old location for other reasons. I’m sure that in their minds whatever the tradeoffs were, they are better off than before.

Guarding at the old location; then guarding at the new location; these are both Dad